We are very pleased to say that we Monolators will hold down the midnight slot (as our friend Ema said, "Monolators time") at the Echo this coming Monday as part of our dear friends Summer Darling's March residency. Co-residenciers Wait Think Fast are not appearing this particular night, but the Hectors and Writer are--so please do come by and watch the first performance at full official loudness of our new lineup.
Much love,
-Eli, Mary, Ashley, Ray, and Jillinda The Monolators
Cobra Lilies play LA Underground's Live At Mr. T's, February 18
Cobra Lilies got a really nice review on Loudvine from our Wednesday show at Mr. T's--I didn't even know any reviewers were there. Even got a B-52's comparison--one of my all-time favorite bands (circa Wild Planet). Thank you Mr. Sanchez, I don't believe we've ever met? But we're grateful nonetheless.
Last night Cobra Lilies threw down the gauntlet at Mr. T's, and then someone picked up the gauntlet and ate it and then they threw up the gauntlet. So I'd avoid the gauntlet right now if I were you.
It was kind of chaotic, but there is video. WARNING: I cannot get these stickam videos to play right now. Maybe it's my browser, dunno. Tell me if they work for you:
Be sure to go to LA Underground's stickam page and look at the other videos for the night--Trick Tracy and Featherbeard were amazing.
One thing that I regret is that the comments from the stickam chat room that were posted while we played do not appear to be archived, since they entirely consisted of outraged, misspelled expressions of hatred and fury. Mostly they were directed at me (as in "tell the annoying guy to shut up") and wished various forms of violence upon us...I wish I could remember them all...I think another was "they need not reproduce." It was SWEET.
Let's talk about the weather in Los Angeles for a moment. Yes, I know, all the rest of you living in less-temperate climes have snow to deal with; I don't care, because we have these bastard potato bugs instead, and frankly there's hardly any comparison:
For those of you who do not know, this is an insect of up to thirty feet in length that crawls from out of the desert in packs searching for potatoes, or, lacking those, the sweet nectar of human flesh. I have personally seen one of them hiding beneath the bridge next to the Brite Spot, giggling, which looks like this:
So don't let me hear about your thirty inches of sleet, because in fact potato bugs hate the cold and that's all that's keeping you from being pulped by six-foot mandibles and lapped up like a daiquirÃ.
But anyway--the weather, the weather, right. Yesterday's weather was lovely, with a dense grey mist in the morning breaking up later into towering white clouds rolling the smog away through a bright blue sky that I almost never see here. At one point the sun was shining WHILE it was still raining, which, as I seem to recall from some Akira Kurosawa movie, is the ideal weather for some especially rare event that human beings never get to see, something to do with foxes, I think--like maybe it means the foxes are all getting married, or maybe it was that the foxes are all going shopping, or the foxes are all peeing in the woods or something along those lines.
So at this point I was going to insert an observation on fake logs, but frankly it wasn't very interesting so I'll get to the meat of the matter.
Monolators are playing tonight (Tuesday) at Echo Curio with Karabel Nightlife and, from NYC, The Shivers. This is special because it's our first show sans-Tom. It's also special because the band will have the "Everyday" lineup (that means Jillinda plus Ray) and I do believe we're going to be playing that very song tonight! We go on at 10, it's all ages and BYOB.
And tomorrow (Wednesday) Cobra Lilies are playing in this. Please do come because it's being recorded LIVE. It will also be broadcast via stickam, as far as I know. I don't know if we are ready for this, but it's happening all the same.
LOL, I just had a springer dropped off Friday, they pull in windows down, children, dog and driver pretty near hanging out the windows (its HOT in TX in Aug mind you) as shes checking in for boarding she asks if I might check the dogs anals, since she just expressed them all over the car and they were on their way out of town. Dog had anals like lemons too. So I offerred her some febreeze and off they went. Bet it was a long drive!
If you somehow haven't noticed, today is the 50th anniversary of Buddy Holly's death, along with Richie Valens and the Big Bopper. Buddy is obviously one of my biggest idols--I've always chased his style to various degrees of slavishness right from the beginning of the Monolators, we've covered "Rave On" in the past, and I've had a vague (and probably not to be pursued anytime soon) idea of covering "Well All Right" in the style of "I'm In Love With A German Film Star" by the Passions--that would be pretty good, right?
Instead we chose to mark this somewhat morbid occasion with a stab at "Everyday." Jillinda is on keyboards/synths and Ray from Maxwell Demon is on lead guitar. The clattering bits are drumsticks on our garage door, recorded and looped thru one of those little Casio synths that let you sample & play back yourself burping up and down the keyboard. LINK!
Incidentally, there's a pretty cool documentary on Buddy called The Real Buddy Holly Story (used copies from $7.13, that magic price) that you should check out. You need to get past the beginning parts with the fellow sitting at a picnic table singing about how he knew Buddy Holly, no really he did, and then there's some cool stuff, including some footage I'd never seen before of Buddy playing in England. And then there's Paul McCartney singing something or other in a barn and it all falls apart. But there you go.
Some amusing pictures from the auto-destruction finale of "Best Friends In Space" from Tom's last show at the Echo. The blogger/photographer says a table came flying at her, but it was actually the front of my amp, which came off when I kicked the amp over. It's only held on by velcro (!). Thanks Fender! The piece in question is the blurry thing near the mic stand, just to the left of Ashley:
